Black Dove
by KagomeMiroku
Summary: A/U;Pirates: When life finally feels like it's at it's worse, there's that one beacon of light that keeps you sane.  As Kiku endures the many hardships of a sea captive, he finds one thing-one person-that makes every situation seem a little less horrible.
1. Chapter 1

**Black Dove**  
><span>Pairing:<span> Ameripan  
><span>Summary:<span> When life finally feels like it's at it's worse, there's that one beacon of light that keeps you sane. As Kiku endures the many hardships of a sea captive, he finds one thing-one person-that makes every situation seem a little less horrible.

**Chapter One**

Innocence is the one thing that seems to define a child perfectly. Pure, goodness, light. They bounce off of what they know, and do wrongly only if they don't know better. They can't be blamed for their mistakes, it was the way they were guided. I refused to follow the path that I was being guided along. Even as a child, I knew better; I wanted to preserve my innocence. I wanted to stay a child, but the invaders gave me no chance.

I sat in the garden outside of my house, my bare feet padding along the smooth stones that bordered the small pond full of colourful fish. They amused me. The colours, their swimming patterns, but I especially loved the little ripples they made along the surface of the pond, when they're tiny mouths broke through the liquid seal to suck the air. I could sit by the pond all day, and only leave when mother called me in for meals. That was my plan for this very day, but my plans were cut short quickly.

"Kiku!"

My head turned slowly towards mother's voice, and I blinked at its tone. She sounded worried, panicked even, but I couldn't grasp why. The sky was beautiful, a bright blue and cloudless, the garden was full of colours and life; everything seemed perfect in my eyes. But they couldn't be. Not with that look that mother wore on her normally beautifull face, not when she ran towards me so quickly, scooping me into her arms, and taking off. I didn't know where we were going, and I knew not to ask silly questions. Father must've left too, because he didn't follow.

He wouldn't stay in a house that was on fire.

Needless to say, I was confused, but I still found it wasn't my place to ask questions. I kept quiet as mother ran through the trees, my eyes only glimpsing at our surrounding village, flooding with fire just like that of which engulfed the house we ran from. People screamed, and I wondered who was the fool who made the fire spread. Who was responsible for destroying our village? Surely they would be punished for their wrong-doings. The thought of our garden came to mind, and I hoped to whatever higher power that it remained safe, despite the monster of mass destruction that was set on killing everything in its path. Someone had to watch over the fish, to take care of the flowers, to play with the fluttering butterflies as they danced around the colourful flowers, tempting them to be brighter than their wings.

My small hands covered my ears as a loud explosion erupted through my village, and I could feel my eyes water with knowledge that our garden was ruined. Father wouldn't ba happy about that. He worked so hard on making it beautiful for mother and I. He worked hours on end, planting the flowers, shining the rocks, and collecting the koi to swim around in the crystal water. I don't think I've ever seen father cry, but surely he would after he saw such chaos.

Mother ran faster into the trees, until we were finally surrounded by silence. She was tired, so I thought we would stop for a while and rest after she set me down, but I was wrong. Taking my hand, she pulled me along in the direction we were heading, her body hunched slightly, her breathing shallow.

"Mother, rest." I tugged on her hand, looking up at her with my wide brown eyes.

"We need to go on, Kiku. Come on." She pulled me along. "Hurry."

I followed of course. Whenever I disobeyed mother, father would get angry. I didn't want to make him any angrier than he would be when he saw our garden. I wish she would tell me where we were going though. It would be late soon, and father always said not to venture into the forest, especially not when the sky was dark. When would we turn back around and go home? The village must've put out the fire by now, the fool who set it on fire would surely be punished by now. Why were we still leaving?

There was an opening up ahead, and mother pulled me through it. We were greeted by the warm, open, orange light of afternoon glistening against the blue-green waves of the ocean. She walked me onto the beach, towards the water's edge, her head looking around anxiously. Was it mother who set fire to the village? Was that why we were making our escape? She knew father would be angry with her about the garden and our house, so she needed us to leave. It would've made sense if mother wasn't so cautious. She would never start such a fire.

She knelt beside me, undoing the bag she wore around her shoulders, and pulled it so it rested around mine. I looked up at her, feeling sad as I saw her bright eyes start to water. Mother was beautiful, like the many flowers of our garden, and I didn't like when she cried. She was strong, her and father made me brave to feel strong too, but when they showed weakness, I felt weak too. I didn't like this feeling.

"Don't cry now," she scolded softly, wiping away my own fresh tears with her thumb. "You need to be strong."

"Yes, mother."

"You mustn't look back when you leave either, Kiku. Don't turn back. Ever. You need to move on, you need to get safe."

"Yes, mother."

The way she looked at me made my chest ache, and when she wrapped her arms around my small body, I felt like a baby and wished to cry. But I had to stay strong for mother, and I couldn't ask questions. I couldn't ask her why she said these things. Wasn't she coming with me? I couldn't ask why father wasn't here, or why it wasn't okay to turn back. Safe from what? But I stayed quiet, my arms moving to hug her back, my chin laying on her shoulder. It felt like years when she finally pulled back and stood to her full height, walking back towards the forest. I stared at where she left, my heart sinking upon thinking that was it. That that was goodbye and I was left on my own, abandoned for doing something I didn't know what. When she returned with a wooden object, I felt eased slightly, watching her every move like the scared child that I was.

"Go far away." She said tearfully, taking my hand and walking me to sit in the mockery of a boat. "Be strong, my Kiku. I love you."

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. If I was to remain strong, I couldn't cry. Not in front of her. She removed a chain from around her neck, and put it around mine, leaving me with a simple kiss over top of the hair covering my forehead, then pushing me out towards the sea to drift; confused, clueless, and hiding my fear. I had to stay strong for mother. Now, I had no choice.

Wading out to see on a small, wooden plank, I sat up straight and stared straight ahead, trying not to think, not to look back. I knew, that if I turned, I would still be able to see mother waiting at the shore, watching me. I also knew that I would lack strength to continue with my assignment if I looked back and saw her, even if she was just a rough outline of what I knew her to be. This was hard, a really hard choice for a child to make, and yet I was stuck with it. I couldn't disobey her, and I was as afraid of the open sea around me as I was to return back home. My mind told me that it was more than just a fire, it had to be if I had to leave like this. Without mother or father, without wishing father goodbye. But I couldn't dig into what could've happened to upset the village to much, that was so bad that I had to seek refuge out at the open sea, alone.

Undoing the bag around my shoulders, I lifted the fabric to see what I had. Pieces of bread, a jar of water, and my favourite sweets. I took one of the sweets and pushed it to the side of my cheek, re-wrapping the bag and tying it back up, folding my hands on my lap and looking ahead. I saw nothing but water. When I glanced over the side of the boat, I thought maybe I would see fish, like those that swam in my pond, but it was too dark to try to see. It was almost too dark to do anything. Eventually, I curled up on the make-shift boat and closed my eyes, the vast sky full of stars, and the large, bright moon didn't interest me now, like when father would come back, set me on his lap, and show me the different stars in our beautiful garden. They didn't matter to me when I was alone, out at sea.

I wanted mother.

My small hands that were folded towards my chest clasped against my heart where the pendant from mother's chain rested. I pulled it from beneath the coller of my shirt and clicked open the locket. There were no pictures inside, of mother, father, or myself. Nothing but the barely able to be seen characters engraved in the hallow, silver inside.

"I love you."

Father gave it to mother before I was born, and for as long as I can recollect, I never saw her without it. And now it was passed to me. I couldn't understand though. How could mother love me if I did something so wrong to be punished like this? To be sent away on my own, along the open ocean, just a child. My supplies were few and would last me only so many days, but the ocean was so vast, I would be traveling forever. The sun would be so hot when the moon went to sleep.

The sun rose above my curled up form four times before I started to give up. My water jar was near empty, and father told me never to drink water from the sea. The bread had gone stale days before, hard as a rock, but I had to eat it to sustain myself. Not as though there was much left of it anyway. The sweets were few, one or two, and I was scared that I was running low on supplies, that I would soon turn to dust from lack of.. Everything. My stomach grumbled with hunger as I started longingly at my remaining supplies, but they had to last me. Even a child such as I knew that I couldn't survive without them. I needed to survive.

I closed my eyes to resist temptation, and within a matter of minutes, although it could've been longer, I was being wrenched from my fetal position and forced to stand and stretch my legs, eyes glazing around at an unfamiliar place. There were men walking around, dressed in off clothes. Many wore some sort of stripped pattern, others had cloths partially covering their heads, patches over their eyes, wooden things where their legs should be, and one man even had a hook where his hand was meant to be. My child self was frightened horribly, but as mother told me, I hid my fear. I would be brave for her. Brave for my mother.

"Hm, and wot's it we've got here?"

Turning a bit clumsily, I saw a man much taller than myself. Beneath his large, feathered hat, he had a dirty blond coloured hair, with eyes that were so green, but narrowed. On his face sat a smile, but it was a strange smile. And unfamiliar smile, as though he didn't mean it. His posture was odd, his hand on his hip, holding over his long, Scarlett jacket, right over where the sheath for his sword was. He was intimidating, scary. Father told me not to make assumptions about people, but this man gave me a bad feeling.

Suddenly drifting alone along the ocean didn't seem like the worst place to be.


	2. Chapter 2

**Black Dove**  
><span>Pairing:<span> Ameripan  
><span>Summary:<span> When life finally feels like it's at it's worse, there's that one beacon of light that keeps you sane. As Kiku endures the many hardships of a sea captive, he finds one thing-one person-that makes every situation seem a little less horrible.

**Chapter Two**

The men on the ship scared me. They were all so tall, so big, and spoke in such a strange dialect. Captain Kirkland was their leader, and he scared me most of all. His hat was larger than any headpiece the rest of his crew wore, and it had a large, purple feather swaying from the top, resting against the coarse- Or what looked to be coarse- material the hat was made from. Whenever I looked at Captain Kirkland, which was something I liked to do as little as I possibly could, he wore his strange, insincere, scary smile as he walked along the ship's deck, barking mad, like an animal, at his "incompetent crew."

I avoided them all to the best of my ability, quietly doing the work one of the men (my official instructor, I thought him as, since he told me my duties every morning) told me to do. The same chores every day since they "saved" me from the sea.

My jobs were strange tasks for a child to do, nothing that I was exactly used to. Mother cooked and cleaned and made sure everything was perfect for when fathre got home. He did the manual labor, which he said was time-consuming, hard work, but entirely necessary. Father told me that, one day, I would need to provide for my family as he did, the same way that he did. Even a young boy such as I knew that he hadn't meant anytime soon, and yet there I was, instructed to move heavy boxes full of "ammunition," and told to clean the canons below deck every morning. I didn't understand, since they were never used (one of the men had compared it them to his hand-held canon, a gun, and said it was used to attack other ships), at least not while I was on board. But, too afraid to disobey, knowing these men's punishments would be far worse than a tap from father, I did my work without complaints. At least, I didn't complain out loud.

"A lashin' from the Cap'in, s'wat yar'll get!" Slurred my instructor as he handed me a bucket of bubbly water, and a stick with rags attached to the ends, while telling me about the Captain's tolerance. He seemed to be not a very nice man. All of the crew feared him, even though all of the crew was visibly older than Captain Kirkland. He was feared, respected, and there had to be a reason more than his uncontainable rage why that was so. I wasn't so curious as to find out though.

As I did my work, I thought of mother and father and our village. I wondered if anyone was hurt in the fire, and if they caught the fool who had started it. They must have. Uncle was an authority man in the village, and he would see to it that any fool was punished for such recklessness, and father would help if out garden was touched by the fire's deadly tongues. He worked so hard on our beautiful garden; it was my favourite place to be. With the colourful flowers, the fresh green grass, and the butterflies dancing along the surface of the koi pond. At night, the fireflies took flight and filled the garden with their flickering display of beauty. Mother would hold me close on her lap and point at the bright bugs, while father caught one or two in his hands, bringing them down to show me. My face would illuminate from their bright light, and happiness from the warmth my parents gave me. Here, alone on this ship, it was so cold.

My eyes watered as my loneliness hit me. There was a possibility that I would never see mother or father or my garden again. That gave me a strange feeling to my chest, as though someone took their foot and pressed it down over my heart, making it hard to breathe. It hurt so much that tears stung my eyes, but my promise to mother made it so my cheeks remained dry. I would stay strong, stay brave. Just as she had asked of me.

My fingers curled around the pendent she gave me, having my loneliness only increase. She would love me always, but the written characters didn't mean as much as the spoken words, or her warm embrace. With a soft kiss to my forehead, she would send me to bed, and the same gesture would be ready for when I woke up. No one would hug or kiss me here, but I didn't want hugs and kisses from these savage men anyway.

"Dinner, boy. Go on and help with supper." the man that spoke with me had a patch over his eye, just like one of the elder women of my village.

Grabbing my rags, I tucked them into my obi and scurried inside to help with dinner. The feast for the captain was hearty and plentiful. At home, not even father could stomach so much food. So much deliciously smelling food. My stomach grumbled most when I was around the captain's meal; preparing the food that would never touch my lips. The bread given to me later would not subside my hunger, and my stomach would roat like a wild beast in the night as I slept and dreamed of eating the glorious feast. Meats, cheeses, vegetables, and assorted fruits; many foods were things that I had never even seen, but wanted to try. And would the cook really knew if I were to steal a bite off the mea-

"Don't even think about it, laddy," the cook scolded. His brows knitted together as he narrowed his dark eyes down at me. He told me "no," but it was almost as though he was daring me to try for it again. I didn't. Father taught me better than to disobey, no matter how starved I thought that I was.

When it was time to eat, the crew got together and threw back oddly scented drinks, while the cook made me go bring the captain his meal on a pure silver tray. Whenever I entered the captain's room, I wanted to question why he lived so luxuriously, and why it was so that the rest of the men slept on unsteady pieces of cloth handing from the walls, one over the other, causing so much chaos when it was time to sleep. Why was it so that he had soft, cushion pillows and animal pelt rugs and blankets, while I was forced to freeze on a hard plank for my bed? But it was not my place to ask. I was but a child, a guest- Treated badly- on the captain's ship. A guest, a child, but I still felt that it was wrong that he lived so lavishly and ate so bounteously. He was hardly a man himself.

He stared at me as though he knew how I thought, and it made shivers run throughout my body. I feared the captain in my heart, just as the crew did. Mother told me not to judge by appearance, but the man gave me no choice. He was mean. His green eyes always so red with rage, his large eyebrows furrowed. His was face so cold, his glare sharp, and his lips pressed tight to scowl. He was intimidating, and so my stay in his cabin was not long at all. In and out to bring his meal, then again to collect his trays. But I had to be precise with my timing, or I would get a lashing, which had happened a few times.

When I finished work, I was given bread and a small tin of water. When that was finished, I was sent to bed, only to replay my tiring day when I awoke again, before the sun rose.

Most nights, I fell asleep without a problem. I was so exhausted from the day that my mind no longer worked and I fell into a normally dreamless sleep, unless I thought of the deliciously smelling food that the captain was so privileged to eat. Some nights, sleep did not greet me so easily. I lay shifting on my plank, clutching my locket in my hands, thinking of mother and father. It was cold at night. The wind whistling through the ship, making little bumps pop up all over my skin. I shivered, trying to pull down my outfit to cover myself up, but it was too short to keep me warm. And just when I felt like I was ready to seep, my adviser shook me roughly to wake and begin my day.

It was a routine for what felt like years, but still I did not complain. I hardly spoke at all if I didn't need to. As I worked, I observed, watched the men and all they did. I especially observed the captain whenever he showed from his cabin. I learned, from a mistake of a crew member, that his first name was Arthur. If I called him that, not as though I was brave enough to address him at all, I would have shackles bound to my ankles and thrown overboard to drown. Captain Kirkland was far from a kind man, but I never did wrong by him. And yet, for some reason, he felt that it would be right to do wrong by me.

After continuous work without breaks, I thought that I would be able to sit and not be discovered. Under the stairs to the upper deck sat two barrels of the strong-scented drinks the crewmen drank from at night. I was small, so I would not be discovered slacking from my work. Tucked into my obi sat leftover bread from the night before, to hold me over for the rest of the day. I tried to savor it, eat slowly so that I would not fill so easily, but it was a hard task. My stomach groaned more from my measly amount of bread crumbs, which may have been the reason I was caught.

My wrist was gripped and I was yanked from my hiding spot by the fear-inducing captain himself.

"And wot's this we've got here, eh?" He had that horrible smile on his face. "A little thief!"

"N-no, sir." I mumbled, my eyes were so wide that I feared they would fall from my face. "I... I saved."

He pulled me from behind the barrels so that the whole crew could see the slacker boy found not doing his work. Shame washed over me as they all stared and laughed lowly under their breath. Father would be so disappointed, and I would be scolded for doing such a dishonorable thing. Slacking off from work to eat wouldn't go without punishment. Not with Captain Kirkland.

Without second thought, he pulled me roughly towards his cabin, and only snarled at me when I stumbled over, splintering my lef. Never have I been dealt so carelessly. Against what I promised mother, tears fell from my eyes like the way the rain had crashed against the ship only nights ago.

"Oh, I'll give you something to cry about, lad! Don't you worry!"

Such a threat made me remember when mother prayed, and when she asked me to pray with her. On a neatly dressed table in our home we had sacred scriptures and holy beats all ready for our prayers. Mother prayed often for good fortune, for health, and always for father and I. She prayed for me, and for my life, and now I found myself also praying for my life as well. Captain Kirkland's brutal treatment of his men made it so I knew he was capable of any kind of punishment. And, for that reason, I prayed for my life.

My cheek hit hard against the flood of his cabin, having me hiss with pain. I knew that I would be bruised, and that such a mark would surely be the least of my worried. I didn't know what the captain would do, or where his beastly brutality cut off. All I knew was that my prayers bothered him, and that along earned me a hard smack to the same cheek that hit his wooden floorboards. When I whined, his body obviously hiding the fact that he was secretly so physically strong, I was hit again to the same cheek. It took much biting on my tongue to not groan, but I managed. Another physical blow yielded, instead the captain laughed. It was low, scary, and almost evil, a perfect mockery of the voiced father pulled to tell me stories involving villainous men. Captain Kirkland was the bad guy, and so I would surely overcome him, yes? ...yes?

I only hoped.


End file.
